Public Lab

The BP Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill occurred while I was completing my PhD in STS at MIT. In response to a fly-over ban that prevented public documentation of the spill by plane, I became part of a community-monitoring project, which used tethered helium balloons with attached digital cameras to map oil impacting the coastline and sensitive wetland areas. Through this work I realized the power and possibility of low cost, do-it-yourself environmental monitoring tools, and collaborated with six others to form a new non-profit organization: Public Lab for Open Technology and Science. The Public Lab founders are featured in the image above: Liz Barry, Shannon Dosemagen, Adam Griffith, Stewart Long, Matt Lippincott and Jeff Warren.

Public Lab is a web-based open source research and development community that produces and uses home-made research tools. While at Public Lab I directed Toxics and Health Research. I continue to volunteer as a Public Lab Organizer and develop many of the project I began while at Public Lab such as methods for mapping Hydrogen Sulfide, a neurotoxic gas produced during oil and gas production and tools for visualizing environmental pollution in realtime.

Public Lab has become an international leader in both the Maker and Citizen Science movements. In 2016 Public Lab was featured in, and a public lab founder Shannon Dosemagen co-authored, the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy an Technology Report “Environmental Protection Belongs to the Public: A vision for Citizen Science at EPA,” which describes the need to “integrate Citizen Science into all aspects of EPA work”.

I have presented Public Lab to EPA Regions 1 and 2 and been a reviewer for EPA’s internal innovation awards. I’m excited to have been part of building a foundation for a deep re-visioning of how people can be involved in science and federal environmental monitoring. I presented the Public Lab work to President Obama and his National Science Advisor at the first White House Maker Faire.